So I've just recently started playing my first game, with most things on auto initially so I can get an idea of how things work before gradually turning systems over to manual - but I've noticed the AI do some what I think seem to be pretty silly things and wanted to see if I was missing something.

1) the ai will construct mining stations light years outside my territory, influence and ability to defend. The stations are invariably attacked by pirates and destroyed. I don't yet have resupply ships so if I try set a defensive fleet to patrol near the stations, it usually ends up heading back for a refuel soon after arriving! Is there any way of keeping construction on auto, but stopping it from building so far away?

2) in an effort to protect the stations above I went in to the ship / base designer and added weapons to all the bases. Of course, as soon as design automation was put back on the ai ignored the weapons and continued to design new base models with no weapons. Again, is there any way round this other than manually doing all ship design?

i manual everything but taxes. yeah pain in the ass but i am a micro manager. I send my construction ships to research locations first, then to resource by empire priority then resources by galactic priority and i always keep it within range of my fleet. But i am playing on a 1400 star map largest amount of sectors so everyone has lots of room before war starts. actually i haven't see a war yet

Resources aren’t always where you want them to be. So I leave it to the AI. In the beginning of a game, and a pirate attacks a mine station, I immediately go to the design screen and arm the mining stations. Since it’s the beginning of a game, you probably don’t have a lot of money, so don’t overspend. And then I forget about them. If you are low on construction ships, build a few more. Also, your mining stations can’t be retrofitted, so it will take a while for your new design to replace all the older versions.

I personally (manually) control the design screen, and the research, and ship building screens. I don’t want the AI involved with those functions at all. In the research tree I want to build bigger ships, add better armor, weapons,etc. Then I want to build colony modules so I can colonize other planets. etc. The AI is just too random here. You'll get the hang of it

There are so many versions of this game coming out: I don’t know which you have, so things may be different from what I’m saying. Good Luck, and have fun!

the only way to keep them from build so far away is to either not explore so fast or to queue up the builds your self. I personally queue up everything in my home system based on the number of ships I have. I will then queue up stuff in nearby systems one at a time as a ship goes to standby. that way I can also queue up labs and resorts without having to wait a long time for a ship to come free. When I grab another planet, i will then switch to queueing up in that system. You will still lose a mine here and there to attacks but you can better response if you control the building like this.

if you got the latest beta, the AI will add a defense weapon to all mines. It is not able to hold off larger ships but can do enough damage to escorts to drive them away as long as they are not in groups. Not strong enough to stop monsters though.